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In the course of the two years that we spend here, we dedicate our time and efforts to several pursuits, some academic and several non academic. With each step that we take along this path, knowingly or unknowingly we move closer to our end objective of achieving our own personal goals. All along we are goaded and guided by several forces, some harsh and a few tender. Amongst these support systems are the infrastructure facilities available to us here within the campus. Probably when we look back at our days, as a snapshot from a period in time into the future – it would be these settings that would warm the recesses of our mind and seek to remind us of the beautiful place and the wonderful incidents that truly enriched two glorious years of our life here. Needless to say the theatre of most of these dreams would be the hostels!

Even as we go about doing our daily activities, we are fortunate to have the services of an extremely dedicated support staff – who meticulously go about their daily activities so that our essential services are available sans any disruption, minor or otherwise. Think of the folks who clear up all traces of midnight celebrations from the L^2, think of the folks who ensure that the corridors of our hostels remain clear from any debris from the previous night’s celebration. Think of the folks who you may never see, but who work in the background to ensure that life in hostel is as smooth as it can ever be. It’s a link between these folks and the student community that I seek to become as I humbly present myself as a candidate for the post of Hostel Secretary.

A man of vision creates castles and a man of action creates them on the ground. I would want to present myself as not someone who “promises the moon”, but someone who has the determination and zeal to see plans materialize into actions and into ground realities. I have had the privilege of working at close quarters with the present hostel secretary and I am aware of the nature of work that this position demands and the relationships I have built with folks at ground level – will undoubtedly hold me in good stead, if I am voted into this position of great responsibility.

I offer myself as candidate who is approachable to suggestions, reproaches, and means and alter means to fix a problem. For it’s in this magic of co-creation that a valuable two years of our hostel life exists. I humbly request you to do the needful, if you see promise in my words; and my promise is – I would strive my best to ensure that I don’t let you down.
Thanks,

Sathyanarayanan C

Its been raining for quite sometime now. The maximum for the month of July in thirty years I am told. Greenery and the stone walls of the hostel make a beautiful sight. Mind drifts to Mangalore and the beauty of rains there. Happiness means different things to different people, and to me it means watching rain on the otherside of the window!

If you were from Bangalore, you would have seen this phenomenon - Students from upmarket schools, having lived close to 23 years in the city, when asked to speak a sentence in the local language would claim ignorance and cry murder saying that they never had the need to know the language.

I always would wonder, how difficult would it be to learn a few basic sentences in a local language?

Nitin, a batchmate of mine here had an interesting take on this issue. He says…

“The number of people evincing interest to learn/speak a language is directly proportional to the GDP of the Language.”

In one sentence, he had managed to drive home an issue, that the Kannada Rakshana Vedikes and Maharashtra Nav Nirman Senas of this country would never understand.

Can you think of any exception to this rule? Maybe French… My explanation is that French is generally perceived to be an extremely Amorous language, and people have the propensity to consume anything amorous!

Have you ever asked yourself this question, “What is that one piece of software without which my computing experience, is just incomplete?”

I bet, if and when you ask yourself that question, one of the answers would be a popular browser like Mozilla Firefox(Flock, in my case) and much above anything else in that list would be Microsoft Office. A computer just seems incomplete without Microsoft office. To this day, I would say that Microsoft Office is the best thing to have come out of the Microsoft Office(pun definitely intended).

And since moving to Ubuntu over the last month, I didnt have many reasons to miss my Windows XP, which lost its position as the primary operating system to Ubuntu Hardy Heron(8.04). Everything I wanted was available on Ubuntu. Browser of Choice - Flock. Video Player of Choice - VLC Media player. Audio Player of Choice - Amarok, plus rhythmbox.

Office Software - _______________________? I know many of you would jump at me at this stage and say - “What about Open Office?”

Well lets face it guys, the guys at Open Office have been doing a good job no doubt, but nothing can replace Microsoft Word for me. Google’s Online Documents are great for collaborating editing, but still an offline utility is a must I feel. Google Docs can just not replace Microsoft Office.

Amongst utilitarian Software - Adobe Photoshop is another that ranks high on the list, due to sheer utility rather than frequency of use, and sad - PhotoShop CS2 is available for Windows, and also for Mac, but not for Linux.(Clearly because of the proprietary nature of the software - point taken).

So my computer experience, was sans Adobe Photoshop, and Office. And then I got hold of WINE, and installed the Wine windows emulator for Ubuntu.

Well, for those who are hearing wine for the first time in a context other than what involves tall greenish tinted and corked bottles, WINE is a windows emulator, and to cut a long story short, provides a middle layer between your application and the underlying unix, which leads the Application(designed for windows) to believing that it was actually running on a windows machine, rather than a linux one.

Thanks to wine, I installed the emulator and then installed photoshop. For more on how to go about doing the same, read the instructions at this lifehacker site.

http://lifehacker.com/396590/run-windows-apps-in-linux-with-wine-10

All things fine so far, and photoshop installation goes on like a charm. And then I click on that photoshop Icon and I get this weird error, saying there is an error and Adobe PS CS2 needs to be reinstalled to continue. So if any of you gets this error, on Ubuntu hardy heron, its a simple tweak suggested by this site that will help you

$sudo sysctl -w vm.mmap_min_addr=0

Site: http://wiki.winehq.org/PreloaderPageZeroProblem

More at the site.

Well thanks to WINE, now I have photoshop running on my Ubuntu Machine! Hurray! Now, if someone helps me install Microsoft office on Ubuntu, in addition to words like gratitude, thankfulness and appreciation, I would also give away my windows XP cd gleefuly.

Cheers!

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Well in other news, I went to the hostel office today and picked up the lot for my room. Was hoping pretty hard to get the K or L block, which would mean new blocks with balconies, ceramic tiles and designer wardrobes. Well that was not to be - yours truly landed up with a old block. H 110 is the room number, a dusty old room - but the window opens to a land which I in my usual exaggeratory tone could call - FOREST, so might be I might have good stories to tell about that place.

Did I ever tell you, that it was always my dream when in Surathkal to have a hostel room overlooking the woods, with a trail running throught it - Might be a few birds thrown in to add their sounds,there is a possibility that H110 could offer all that.

Good Night,